Rennes+Mont Saint Michel

The Mont Saint Michel abbey was on my "bucket list" here for the past 5 years or so. Ever since I saw a picture of it I knew I needed to go there! I've been trying to go forever, but I lived too far away, and it's very difficult to get there since there aren't any train stations close-by. You can see on this map that's it's actually located on a small island in the middle of the English channel, surrounded by quicksand, and you used to be able to access it only when the tide was down. Since then they've built a causeway so that cars and buses have access to it, even when the tide is up.After some research and some help from Rick Steves, I figured out that there were buses to go there from a town called Rennes, about an hour and a half south of the abbey. I knew nothing about Rennes, but it's easy to get to from Paris and we got a great hotel deal through Thibaut's company.

When we got to Rennes, we were very pleasantly surprised. We weren't planning on spending much time there, but we ended up really loving the town! Lots of cool restaurants, bars, and young people, and since most of the houses are half-timbered (like in Alsace!), I fell in love with the place. We also found these huge gardens in the middle of the city, with thousands of flowers everywhere! It was a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, so it was a perfect day to hang out in a beautiful park.

Rennes

Local specialties: Buckwheat crêpes and Cider

my favorite street

quick beer stop during the brief rainstorm

Parc Thabor

On Monday we got up early to catch the bus, and headed for Mont-Saint-Michel. The weather was perfect, not one cloud in the sky and not too cold. We really lucked out! When we got to the island, we spent some time walking around the town that's at the bottom of the island (population of 30 people!) and then headed up to the abbey. We did a tour in French, and unfortunately the lady was Spanish so I could barely understand her! Even the French people were saying they really had to concentrate to understand what she was saying. Luckily I looked up the history later on when I got home. The place was first built as pilgrimage center in the 6th century. They built it high on the island to be as close to heaven as possible. It was occupied by monks for almost the entire time up until 2001, except for a short period during the Resistance in the 18th century, when they used it as a prison for over 300 priests who refused to renounce Catholicism. The inside isn't all that exciting, unless you think about the history of it. So here are some pics, and if you get a chance, it's definitely worth a short visit!

Mont-Saint-Michel!

cute little town walking up to the abbey

The area where the monks walked and meditated

Footprints in the quick sand

Chez Moi!

I've been meaning to get some pictures up of my new place, and here they are. It only took me a month and a half, it's fine. Check it out!

My courtyard, shared with one other college student. My house is the one straight ahead

my rose bush!

Entrance from the street... note the spikes on top of the door. for birds or humans?? I hope birds

Church at the end of my street

kitchen

kitchen and bathroom on the left

"living room" is not very livable, I'm still working on it!

entrance when you come down the stairs, with my favorite lamp fixture (kitchen's on the right, living room on the left)

these floors need to go.

but these can stay

les W.C. upstairs

my bedroom upstairs

Alright there's the grand tour, hope you enjoyed it!

These are a few of my favorite things...

FRENCH PASTRIES and DESSERTS. How could I have forgotten this on my "like" list? They don't make them the same at home. Eclairs, macaroons, chocolate mousse, chocolate croissants ("pain au chocolat" in French. Seen above, these are my favorite ever), the list could go on forever. It's still a mystery to me how French people aren't fat... with all these pastries around it seems impossible to resist.

The famous "Ladurée" pastry shop in Paris

typical pastry shop window displays

Macaroons in every flavor

Why

do French people love their dogs so much? They literally take them everywhere, restaurants, stores, friend's houses, etc.! I think this goes on my "like" list though, it is kind of cute. Except when they don't clean up after them on the streets...

Water Lilies, anyone?

Claude Monet lived in a house in Giverny, France for over 40 years of his life. He has always been one of my favorite painters, specifically his "water lilies" paintings. He made hundreds of paintings just of water lilies, and the reason he did it is because he was influenced by the gardens at his place in Giverny. Well I've already made numerous trips to the museum in Paris where there are 2 full rooms of these paintings, so I had to take it to the next level! A trip to Giverny was definitely in order.

This past Tuesday the weather was supposed to be beautiful, I was in Paris, and Thibaut had the day off. It was a perfect opportunity to go! We left in the early afternoon, took the hour train/bus ride to get out there. When we first got there we noticed something funny... not ONE person was speaking French. Thibaut was literally the only French person in the place. Apparently Giverny is a tourist hot spot for retired American folks. Oh, and we were definitely the youngest people there, too. I guess people who aren't retired are usually working on Tuesdays, not sure what the whole "work" thing is about. We started off the afternoon at a delicious Crêperie, of course I started with a mushroom and cheese crepe and ended with a Nutella one (I would just eat Nutella with a spoon if it wasn't so bad for you). Crepes are a specialty in Normandy and that's where we were, so it seemed necessary to try some. I have to say I was pretty impressed.

After our bellies were full of Normand goodness, we headed over to the gardens and the home of Monet. There's not much to do there except hang out and stroll around the gardens, and the weather was definitely the best that we could have ever asked for. His house was pretty normal looking on the inside, with a very country feel, the kind of place that I dream of living! It was really interesting to see the gardens and especially the water lilies pond. Walking around it's so easy to see how he was influenced by the place! It was so peaceful and beautiful, a dramatic change from the hectic Parisian life that we had to go back to that night! This place is pretty enough to inspire anyone to want to paint, I think I need to perfect my stick figures before I can move onto the big stuff though...

The view from Monet's porch

His home. Can I have it??

Thibs just checking out the fishies

The famous Japanese bridge and water lilies pond

Thibaut getting some sun while I stayed in the shade with my 50 spf